


The Soul Should Stand in Awe

by resurrectionfromashes



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Demisexuality, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Emotional Manipulation, First Time, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:27:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25534321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrectionfromashes/pseuds/resurrectionfromashes
Summary: History repeats itself in a vicious way. Characters are shaped by experiences created by men. Phillip grew to be a man using others.Richard grew to be a man who could love.Thomas met both.
Relationships: Duke of Crowborough/Other(s), Richard Ellis/Other(s), Thomas Barrow/Duke of Crowborough, Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Kudos: 23





	The Soul Should Stand in Awe

**Author's Note:**

> Every character's first time takes place at the age of sixteen, which is only one of the reasons for "dubious consent". Only one of them would considered to be a fully consensual relationship. 
> 
> Title is from "The Soul unto itself" by Emily Dickinson

_“I am only responsible for my own heart, you offered yours up for the smashing my darling._

_Only a fool would give out such a vital organ”_  
**Anais Nin**

Phillip, Duke of Crowborough

_“For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts.”_  
 **The Birthday of the Infanta** , Oscar Wilde

Phillip was born the second son of the 8th Duke of Crowborough and his wife, Rowena. His older by five years brother, Andrew, was killed in a horse-riding accident when he was eight years old. Three years later, his father, the Duke, died of complications after a heart surgery. Doctor lost his license afterwards but was handsomely rewarded by a beneficial stranger and moved to Venice, where a decade later, he had his own medical practice. If he kept getting and sending cards to the late Duke’s Dowager no one had to know, besides themselves.  
  
Rowena Villiers was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and large forehead usually covered by curls. She had refined features, large eyes, small upturned nose, sensual cupid bow lips, even if they rarely smiled. She was her son’s only guidance in life and he followed her orders obediently. 

The Villiers had lived for generations in the northern part of East Sussex, around 4 miles from the county border with Kent. The town was located on the eastern edge of the Ashdown Forest, an ancient area of open heathland where Phillip has spent many of his days in his summer holidays. 

While Phillip enjoyed the countryside he grew up to be more of a London courtier courtesy of his mother. Rowena tried to instill his privileged superiority on him, but up until the age of 15, he was an easy-going open child. Around his birthday, his riding trainer, a man over 50 who had been working in the estate since Andrew’s death, had an accident and his mother, having already lost a son, hired a younger trainer. 

Graham Norton moved into the game keeper’s hut on a late June evening. He was a tall, blond man in his late 20s. His sharp cheekbones, pale blue eyes and a strong square jawline had most females turning their eyes on him. 

Maurice, the Butler, informed him his mother was waiting for him in the library the next morning. Mr. Rodon, Phillip’s valet was standing behind the Butler ready to get him dressed. Phillip had been gone to sleep late that night reading a novel his mother would disapprove of. 

As far as first meetings went, Phillip didn’t show the quickening of his heartbeat the moment his eyes fell on his new instructor and kept his head high while his Mother made the introductions.

Phillip’s training became harsher, longer. He found his muscles aching after each lesson, a slight limp on his walking until he soaked in a hot bath. His new instructor had a more hands on approach of teaching and he had Phillip taking care of his horse, Cesar, before and after training despite having an extremely healthy stable boy loitering about. Phillip felt his cheeks burning every time Duncan gripped his hand to show him how to brush Cesar, his body leaning closer to his.

“Like this, slowly…” The low, breathy voice vibrated through Phillip’s body. A new emotion pulsed through him, trying to find a name. 

Months passed, Phillip went back to school, discovered a passion for architecture but was too lazy to actually study it, and then it was summer and he and Graham found themselves back on a horse and Phillip, for the first time, tried to start the conversation.  
  
“How did you settle here?”  
  
Blue eyes stared down at him. “It’s nice. The Estate, the village, the villagers, everything is peaceful and quiet. Just how I love it.”  
  
“Where were you living before you come here?”  
  
“London. It was too loud for me. Too occupied, Your Grace.” Every time his instructor used his honourific, Phillip thought he was mocking him. Roughly twice his age, he was working for him. All because Phillip was born in nobility. And Graham wasn’t.   
  
  
“I understand. I want to stay here as well. Mother says it will be impossible.”  
  
“Nothing is impossible for a young man like yourself, Your Grace. You’ll do well to remember that.” He locked his eyes on Phillips, and smiled, his hands clutched the younger man’s shoulders and rubbed gently. “You’ll get there.”  
  
  
Phillip took to following Graham around the Estate as a pastime, holding a book in his hands he pretended to read every time he was caught. It was often he was caught. He had perfected his spying ability in school. Graham often sat alone in his lunch breaks and late evening in his cottage, smoking. The young Master would watch from afar as he lit his cigarette and sat there smoking, shirt open in the collar.   
  
It wasn’t normal, Phillip knew as much as that. It sent shivers down his spine and an odd clenching in his abdomen. He had to try more to be eloquent in his instructor’s presence and stopped referring to his mother as often as before as to be seen as a ninny. 

  
_He snapped his hips harder, faster swallowing the woman's moans with his mouth, his gaze locked on Phillip's eyes who couldn't move, couldn't look away, stranded somewhere between mortification and arousal, lost for the first time in a world of lust._

_Graham groaned as he stilled, the woman's legs tight around his waist. She sighed deeply, snapping Phillip back to reality when he recognised his own Mother under his instructor's body. He ran away as quickly as he could, never his head turning back to see if her Ladyship had seen him standing there watching her having sex with a man in her service. Phillip ran until he reached his own quarters, closed, and locked the door behind him before sliding down on the floor panting._

_Restricted by his clothes, he pulled them off hastily. He stood in the middle of his room clad in his undergarments, shivering and sweating at the same time. He wished he was repulsed by the spectacle he had witnessed, and in a way, he was. His own mother, the Lady of the House was engaging in illicit love... sexual... affair with a member of the household. And she had been enjoying it, held down and used._

"You saw us yesterday." A breath tickled his neck and he whirled around. Graham was standing tall next to him. “Me and her Ladyship.”

Phillip was speechless. He didn’t believe he’d have mentioned it. 

“Did you like what you saw?”

“Its… it’s my mother!”

“She’s a woman. Sensations are for everyone, including women.” 

The back of his hand moved along Phillip’s shoulder to his neck and under his ear before he took a step back dislodging it from his person. “Will we train today?”

“Of course, Your Grace,” Graham said, bowing deeply. Phillip was left with the belief he was being mocked. 

Two hours later, they returned to the stables, Phillip was more tired than in any of his previous lessons that he had since the age of six. “Are you usually more lenient with me?” He asked irritated when his knees buckled beneath him when he dismounted Oscar. The stable boys immediately took both of their horsed, and only Graham was there to stop him from falling on his arse. 

He wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him against his chest. “Easy there, Your Grace.”

Phillip wasn’t used to be held against another man’s body. His own Father had been cold and unapproachable and more he had died when Phillip was ten years old. He grew up in an Estate as the sole heir, with servants to order around. Graham was… something else. He didn’t like to be ordered. 

Phillip looked up, and up to Graham’s dark blue eyes. “I think I can walk now.” 

“Are you sure? I won’t mind carry you to the patio.”

Phillip was no maiden in distressed to be carried, but the thought entered his mind and blushed at the pleasant feeling down his spine. “No, thank you.” 

Graham let him down on his feet and it was only then that Phillip understood that he had been holding him up in the air. Dizzy from a feeling he couldn’t understand, he lost his balance again and Graham put one arm under his knees and one under his shoulders making true of his earlier offer carrying him -bridal style- to the patio. Phillip hoped no one had seen them. 

  
Phillip was brushing Cesar alone, letting the methodical repetitive movement of his arm lull his mind into a state of peacefulness.  
  
“You never said. Did you enjoy it?” Graham’s voice startle him to now, bringing every thought he wanted to forget to the forefront.  
  
Phillip turned to him, flushed all over, starting from his cheeks and moving downwards. Graham leant closer to him. He ought to be able to take a step to the left –or five- throw his brush at him, and avoid him for the rest of his holidays. “Have you been jealous?” The voice had turned lower, the usual breathiness turned up and Phillip couldn’t draw a breath in. He was suffocating and yearning for something more.   
  
Hit Graham?   
Punch him on his high cheekbone and use his power over him to shut him and his words up.   
  
Graham moved around him, turned the younger man back to face his horse and he stood behind Phillip. He leaned closer to him, gripping his hand, a reminder of the first time they had done this. “Your mother is a lovely lady, but she’s not you.” The hand that was not holding his own touched his waist underneath his riding jacket. Squeezed him lightly.  
  
“She’s beautiful, but not lovely.” Phillip’s heartbeat turned erratic as his hand was released by Graham’s only to feel it on his front, unbutton his jacket.   
  
“He’s experienced, yes, but she lacks in innocence. No wide eyes, no soft mouth.” He licked behind his ear, nuzzling his neck. “Smelling of soap and maleness.”  
  
It was wrong, Phillip knew, wasn’t it?   
It was what he wanted, wasn’t it? What he craved for months and months.   
  
“Let me…” go, he wanted to say.   
  
The hands crept beneath his jacket, the mouth blew on his earlobe and sucked gently.  
  
“No.” it was whispered gently and made him tremble just as much as the hands on his side running up and down, making him want to feel then on his skin. “You don’t want me to let you now that I have you.” Graham’s mouth kissed a spot beneath his ear and Phillip felt goose bumps rising all over his body. All rational thought disappeared.  
  
Who knew he was so sensitive there?  
  
Graham’s hands went underneath his waistcoat, shirt and undershirt, touching lightly at his abdomen first and moving up from his sides to his nipples. “I’d like you naked on my bed, face to face, looking down on your beautiful face.” Traced the outline of his left nipple with his finger and as the other hand traveled south to unbutton his trousers he continued to rub the nipple back and forth.  
  
“So sweet, so responsive…” Moth kissing his throat, one hand squeezing and gently pinching the nipple, Phillip almost didn’t understand when Graham started stroking him through his undergarment. He gasped in shock. Being touched was different than stroking himself to completion. “That’s right, sweetheart, nice isn’t it?”   
  
He wrapped his intex finger and thumb around Phillip and squeezed lightly, moving up and down feeling the cotton getting wet from his ministrations. Phillip felt himself leaning back on the hard body his head titled back on Graham’s shoulder, giving him the opportunity to suck on his pulse point.   
  
Brush fell on the ground, Phillip’s hands just as limp as his brain.   
  
It was too much for the sixteen year old young man who came as Graham started pumping him. He turned him around and kissed him, tongue licking around his top lip. “Come find me in my place.”  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
Phillip drummed his fingers on the table, hardly listening to Lord Mastpherson’s unending words. His gaze swept the room, attempting to find something, or someone, interesting to spend his time with. He was unsuccessful long enough, nodding and smiling at the right time as the monologue went on, anticipation of the emptiness making itself known with every passing moment.

His stomach clenched, his heartbeat in perfect harmony with his beating of the polished wood, he caught the back of a man talking to Lord Grantham. Tall, slim, dark haired, held his body with precision. A servant? Or a family member? Phillip took instant interest. He remembered the Earl had no son, only daughters and was in need for an heir. The young man wasn’t his son. 

Lord Mastpherson’s daughter sat next to him, the cologne she had sprayed clogging his smell. “It’s time for our dance,” she whispered in his ear, they cheeks touching. Her skin was cold and clammy, and her voice held an undertone of breathiness that wasn’t there when they spoke earlier. When he remembered to look at the Lord Grantham and his companion again, the older gentleman was making his way towards his wife. The man who had caught his attention had all but disappeared like the moon behind the clouds in London’s November sky. 

Phillip’s skin was itching with need. “I’ll be right back,” he excused himself from his banqueters. He paced through the guests slowly, gazing around to find the illusive man. When he didn’t find him inside, he went for a walk outside through the main entrance. Walking around the estate he found the servants’ entrance, where someone was leaning against the wall.

  
Up close the man -boy?- looked younger than Phillip originally thought, maybe younger than Phillip himself. Dressed in footman’s livery, now Phillip could see he was Lord Grantham’s servant. His lips widened in the darkness enjoying the paths his imagination was leading him to. He knew from experience he could fulfill his needs easier with servants or in dark alleys, though he avoided the latter rather than with his own peers. Too many questions and finger pointing he could live without. 

  
Phillip had a new pet project and he was gorgeous, as far as Phillip could observe, young enough to be malleable in his hands and hard enough for Phillip’s needs. He let his gaze linger on the man’s lanky body. He was only a bit taller than Phillip and on the thin side, but Phillip imagined a muscled, hard body hidden under the servant’s livery.

He pulled out his silver case and took a cigarette, never one for cigars. He lit it with a match and offered it to the man who seemed to get ready to leave. 

“I don’t smoke, Your Grace.” A low voice, an accent Phillip didn’t recognize, but pleasant to listen to.

“And you don’t care to try?” Phillip cajoled, moving closer to him just as the man stepped away. 

“Not particularly, but I thank you for the offer.”

The striking profile turned before he attempted to leave to reveal a face out of romantic literature. Most of his male peers were bland looking individuals -or even ugly, if he dared say so himself- comforting themselves with their money and position in society, but lads from the lower classes were strangely enough pieces of beauty. Like the boy in front of him, oddly connected to the nightly colours but stunningly different under the hazy light seemingly absorbing the young man’s paleness. 

“Is there anything you need, Your Grace?” The youthful voice broke through his reverie.

“Just a bit of fresh air.”

One raised eyebrow was eloquent enough, but he used his words too. “But, you smoke, Sir.”

“I do indeed.” Phillip traipsed towards him, carefully so slowly, his shoulder touching the man’s elbow. Freshness comes in all sizes and types…” he let the phrase open, gazing expectantly at the boy. 

“Thomas, Your Grace. My name is Thomas,” Thomas replied, looking down at the bodies touching and took a step away cautiously.

Phillip took it in a stride, and stepped away as well, letting the man keep his distance. For now. He didn’t want to scare him away. He wanted him to be this week’s entertainment. No one else would do he realized the moment he saw the dark crystalline eyes. “After all, it’s London. Not much of fresh air.”

  
  
  
  
“Do you work long for Lord Grantham.”  
  
“About over a year, Your Grace.”  
  
“Is it your first time as a footman?”  
  
Phillip saw Thomas hesitating for a while. “Yes.”  
  
“Did you always want to become a footman?”  
  
“It’s a good job, Your Grace.”  
  
“Yes, but is it what you wanted to be? And why not a valet?”  
  
“I’m too young to be a valet, Your Grace.”  
  
“I could have you as my valet, Thomas. You’d be a perfect addition to my staff. If you wanted to.”  
  
“Thank you, Your Grace.”  
  
“Of course, I’d have to get married first and then I could have you here with me.” Phillip lit a cigarette and offered one to Thomas again who declined. Again.   
  
“I have to return to my duties, Your Grace. If that was all.”  
  
Phillip stood in front of Thomas and raised a hand to touch his forearm. “That’s not all. But you may go to your work. Take the jacket with you. A button needs to be replaced. I’m sure it’s an easy job for you,” Phillip looked at Thomas’ eyes. The footman was both fearful and excited, he was certain of it.   
  
“Of course, Your Grace.” Phillip didn’t move away, and Thomas brought their bodies close together to be able to leave.

  
A knock on the door awoke Phillip from a light evening slumber. He looked up to Thomas coming inside the bedroom without waiting for the order to enter. 

"I brought your dinner jacket, Milord." 

  
Phillip stretched on the bed, arms raised up before he slowly stood, naked from the waist up. He grabbed his robe from the chair, putting it on. He let it open in the front, catching Thomas looking at him. "Did you have the button fixed, then?" He sauntered towards the footman and situated his body behind the taller man. He reached over him to touch the button he had unraveled earlier, and felt Thomas stiffening and wounding inside, but Phillip had made it impossible for the other man to escape. "This is good job," he whispered to him, as if he really had an opinion on the matter. "I feel as if I have to reward you."

  
"Thank you, Your Grace, but that's not necessary." 

  
Phillip raised his hand to Thomas' shoulder and turned him around. "Thomas was the disciple who didn't believe, am I right?" 

  
"According to the Bible."

  
"And do you know the Bible well, Thomas?"

  
"As well as everyone else, Your Grace. Thomas didn't believe the Lord was risen until he saw the wounds in his hands."

  
"Would you believe without seeing?"

  
"I don't understand." It was clear Thomas was a man who didn't like not understanding something. His gaze flickered between Phillip's nose and the door. 

  
Phillip slid his hand over the shoulder to the neck to the cheekbone. Now that he had him close enough to see his face clearly, clean pale complexion prone to blushing, high cheekbones still with adolescence fat, grey eyes in the colour of the ocean in a winter's day, Phillip believed Thomas would grow to become a breathtaking man. But he couldn't be much older than he was when Graham had seduced him. And if Thomas was half as a willing student as he had been.

  
“You never said, did you always want to be a servant?” Phillip asked from behind him.  
  
“No, Your Grace.”   
  
  
Phillip had never attempted to seduce a man like Thomas before. Most of his conquests were as experienced as he was, knew what he wanted and were pleased to give it to him. He had to admit to himself, he enjoyed this seduction play more than he thought possible. His body almost tingled with excitement. “Yes…?”  
  
  
“Well, like all kids, I thought I could maybe be a doctor. Or an archaeologist.”  
  
“You’ve been reading books.”  
  
The sight of those pale cheeks turning red before Thomas looked down to hide his embarrassment was enticing. He wanted to eat him alive. Was that what Graham felt when he was looking at him? No! Don’t think of Graham.  
  
“I like reading, Your Grace.”  
  
“It shows. You’re intelligent, I can see that.”  
  
  
“Thank you, Your Grace.”  
  
  
“And very handsome. I think you can be a valet very soon. I don’t think I’ve known anyone who could fit as a valet as you would. I’ve been thinking about you all day. And night.”   
  
“What for, Your Grace?”  
  
“How much I’d like to have you here.”  
  
Thomas squinted at him, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “Is there anything else you want, Your Grace?”  
  
“Oh, many things.”  
  
  
He leaned over and kissed Thomas’ lips. He felt the other man freeze and raised his hands, wrapped them around Thomas’ forearms and held him in place. Phillip wasn’t as fond of kissing as he was of other activities, but he could take it slowly if it meant he could have Thomas beneath him. Sooner better than later.   
  
A few moments later, Thomas was kissing him back, clumsily, but wholeheartedly. Phillip had to admit it was better than the mechanical, experienced kisses he had in the past. He could mold Thomas to perfection.


End file.
